Day 14:

Day 10:

What do you need to let go of?

I need to let go of the trauma my parents put me through. I need to let go of everything that happened to me growing up and instead become a better person because of it. I need to stop swearing off people, things, and opportunities because I am terrified of ending up like my parents.

My mom and dad were so toxic together that I used to hope that they would divorce but they "stayed together for the kids." But that is bullshit, they stayed together because it was easier and because they were selfish. And I look back and I refuse to ever go through that and because I am holding onto that I have been so scared to love that I have closed off completely. I think that I am unlovable.

I know that it is all in my head but there are so many years of watching my parents hate each other, makeup, abuse each other, dance, drink, and smoke themselves to death, and the cycle would just continue.

I do not want to fall into that cycle but I fear that I have created a whole new toxic cycle instead.

“It was one of the best days of my life, a day during which I lived my life and didn’t think about my life at all.”

— Jonathan Safran Foer Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

pie pngs ♡

Rainy day in Kyoto

My aunt died two days ago and while we were not super close, I feel her loss so profoundly. I have experienced so much death in my almost 30 years and it never gets easier. I got to the hospital just as they were taking her away and I wish I had arrived a few minutes later. I wish I never had to see them unwrap her like a mummy so I could say goodbye. She was cocooned and buckled in and all I could do was shake. Because even though I have been to too many funerals to count, I had never been around someone who just took their last breath. All I could think about was my dad in that moment and how the last time I saw him he was basically a vegetable in the bed. I begged him to move on so that he and everyone else would no longer be suffering. At that moment, all I could think about was how is just dust in a tomb somewhere. The thought of someone just leaving this universe as if they were never even here is so unfathomable to me.

Death scares me so profoundly and sometimes I feel like it is looming over me. That at any moment my life will be taken from me and I will be just a memory for everyone around me.

Heart Frog and Butterfly Frog by Nat Power.

What does my childhood me need the most?

I think childhood me needs stability, reassurance, love, and peace. I know it could have been much worse, in comparison to other people’s childhood, but what I went through has affected me deeply.

I felt like I was in a constant state of turmoil, always walking on egg shells around my parents. I felt like we were always being pulled back and forth by both parents. We were pawns to them and used as excuses for them to live in their toxicity. They couldn’t live without each other and we suffered because of it.

I have never known what it was like to grow up with parents who loved each other selflessly. There were always restrictions in place and even when it came to us, I felt like they loved each other more than they ever loved us.

Because of all of this, I have been in a constant state of anxiety and that has followed me into my adult life. I am a mix of both of my parents, in the worst ways possible.

I wish I could go back and hug childhood me and let her know that I love her so much. I want her to speak her mind more instead of bottling it up. I know she has so much love to give.

“They say when you meet the love of your life, time stops, and that's true. What they don't tell you is that when it starts again, it moves extra fast to catch up.” - Edward Bloom

Big Fish (2003)

Queen of the Damned (2002)